US protesters clash with guards at Washington museum

Protesters clashed with security staff when they tried to enter a museum in Washington on Saturday, prompting one guard to use pepper spray and leading to at least one arrest, a spokeswoman said.
The incident occurred at The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum around 3:15 pm (1915 GMT), after hundreds of activists had marched from Freedom Plaza, near the White House, along the National Mall towards the US Capitol.
Some of those in the demonstration were affiliated with the Occupy DC protest group that sprung up earlier this week as a spin-off of the larger Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, angered at “corporate greed.”
Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said a group of the protesters were confronted when they tried to push through the doors and enter the Air and Space Museum.
“When they were told they couldn’t bring the banners they were carrying inside one security officer used pepper spray,” she said.
“There were a couple of hundred protesters in the area at the time and Washington police were called. There was one arrest that I know of,” she added, noting that the museum closed its doors two hours early because of the clash.